Media role in public’s view of youth violence debated

By Jacinta Feldman
KPA News Bureau Director

Professionals on both sides of the issue debated how much, if any, the media’s coverage of youth violence sways public perception during a speaker series at Eastern Kentucky University on March 30.

Criminologists said the media covers youth violence disproportionately to its role in society. Journalists said the very fact that it is rare and unusual is what makes those crimes newsworthy.

“I think you can say that about a lot of things we cover,” said Lexington Herald-Leader Editor and Senior Vice President Pam Luecke. “We cover war disproportionately to its role in society, we cover sports disproportionately to its role in society. Lord knows we cover sports disproportionately.”

Luecke was on a five-member panel that reacted to Criminal Justice Professor Victor Kappeler’s statements about the media’s coverage of youth violence. Other members on the panel included Jim Ogle, senior vice president for news at WKYT-TV, Michael Marsden, Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs at Eastern, Dena Tackett, student editor of The Eastern Progress and Liz Hansen, associate professor in the university’s department of communications.

Kappeler said that the media “spit out” news releases uncritically from police and other public officials. He said because the media wants to get the story out quickly and because they are afraid of alienating their sources, those officials can influence what is published and broadcast, and in turn, what people believe.

He said that is how the war on drugs started, the hysteria in the 1980s that there was a trend of child abductions, and most recently, the idea that there has been a “rash” of school shootings.

Kappeler said the number of violent crimes committed by youths is down from past years, but because of the way the media has covered school shootings, the public would never believe that.

People are interested in youth violence and that is why they are covered so heavily, Tackett said. She said when a child hurts another child, people want to know why, and they look to the news media for the answers.

And, Hansen said, newspapers are a business and they must make a profit, so providing their readers with something they want to read about is very important.

Time has always been a difficult factor for the media to deal with, especially with the immediacy of broadcast news, Ogle said. He has told all his reporters that if they don’t see it with their own eyes, they have to always attribute all the information in their stories. He said those two things can make it difficult to make sure that everything is completely accurate and correct.

“If something happened at 2:30 and you have a newscast at 5 p.m., you have about two and a half hours to determine if someone’s been lying to you, and often that’s not enough time to do that,” Ogle said.

But he said, reporters always strive for the truth. They do not stop working on a big story like a school shooting after the first story has aired. They look for new sources and continue to question the officials to find out as much information and get the complete story to the audience.

Luecke agreed, calling newspapers the “first rough draft of history.” She said sometimes it takes a while to get the whole story covered.

Criminal Justice Professor Pete Kraska, who was also a speaker at the series, said that it is not stories by individual media outlets that spur the hysteria.

Kraska’s work about SWAT teams on local law enforcement agencies has been featured in several national television news shows and large daily newspapers. He said most of the reporters he has talked with have been eager to make sure their stories are fair and accurate.

But because of the competitive nature of the industry, and efforts to localize national stories, the media as a whole can create the belief that there is a trend going on. “Individual media people did not get together and say, ‘let’s be ugly and do this,’ but the cumulative affect is the same,” he said.

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